Economics in Sport
...erican decision making model than that concerned with England. In school it goes beyond the children making the decision, it is also linked with parents and coaches. The article, “High School Soccer in the New Millennium” which is written by G. Ramsey makes us aware of other issues that affect participation. It clearly states that large participation is not present due to the attitudes of coaches and parents. There is a lack of parent support, on many soccer teams, compared to football, or basketball teams. According to a web article, which is present at www.wldcup.com lots of soccer players in America, actually choose to play soccer in the first place, because of the lack of support they have from their parent. They have a problem in their decision making model, which concerns the support they receive from their parents, so they are nearly forced to make a decision. They choose soccer because it is a very cheap game to fund. Unlike all the popular American sports, soccer does not require any specialized equipment. You need no more than a soccer ball to initiate a game of soccer. You can use two stones as goal posts and the game is underway. With no support coming from the parents, the children look to their coach for inspiration, but it is not always present. In American coaches can have more than one team to coach. For example, the baseball and soccer team are both coached by the same person. This can lead to more attention being projected on one team than the other, and more respect given to different players. The coach usually specializes in the American sport and is just assigned to the soccer coaching job to keep the program in motion. It doesn’t necessarily mean he will take the soccer team seriously, because his attention will be based mainly on the baseball team. The reason the schools assign the coach to two teams is because in America the demand for soccer coaches is high, but the supply is very low. This does not occur in Europe because the demand is a lot lower than the supply. Even though soccer is not a huge hit in the American schools, it could easily be a hit in the entertainment, profit making industry. As it is clearly present in England, soccer makes huge amounts of money. So why have Americans, being the money making giants of the world, not taken to this game? Once again we look at the Decision Making Model, and this time also take into account the economic concept of Supply and Demand. America is a country, where sport is loved; there are a lot of passionate people when it comes to the subject matter. Many are willing to spend money to go and watch a competitive sports game. They will pay to watch lots of American sports but they hold back when it comes to paying to watch soccer. The reason for this is that Americans like to see high scoring games, with lots of points on the scoreboard. With soccer this is not present; very rarely do u see lots and lots of goals in a game. This influences the decision the people make when choosing what sport to watch. The feeling is that lots of points, equals more entertainment and if it’s more entertaining it is worth the money. “The game of soccer is considered “boring” by many people because it seems like all the players do is run around and kick the ball, hardly ever getting a shot on goal. Soccer is also a very long game – many people cannot watch 90 minutes of soccer, even though the clock never stops. Hockey, on the other hand, is a faster and more exciting game. A typical night for an NHL goalie involves 30 – 40 saves. The fans love the hard hitting, the fighting, and the 90-mph slap shots. All this within 60 minutes”. (Soccer isn’t popular for a variety of reasons). This suits Americans because they are after quantity and not always quality they also prefer sports that give us more scoring with a shorter attention span required. Therefore soccer is not a game often chosen to watch by Americans. For the media it is the audience that makes the money for their company. If the media, such as television, radio, and newspapers are producing what the audience wants to see, hear, and read then they are going to be successful. This is the major explanation to why soccer is not covered so intensively as Football, Basketball, Baseball, and Hockey. It links in with Supply and Demand. The Demand from the audience to have soccer in the media is very low. This has a huge impact on the Supply. With there being no demand for the sport by the people, the media feel t...